Chile’s first female pilot recounts sexism and dangers of WWII

SANTIAGO, Chile — Margot Duhalde lies awake scared when she remembers what she was doing over 70 years ago: flying fighter planes without a radar over England in World War II — and sometimes crashing.

A country girl from southern Chile, of French Basque ancestry, she became her country’s first female pilot — and the only woman aviator to join the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle’s government in exile.

Now 96, in a military retirement home in Santiago, it frightens her to recall the dangers she faced while playing her part in Europe’s fight against the Nazis.

But as a young woman, she did not hesitate.

“Ever since I can remember, I wanted to fly,” she said. “According to my mother, I started saying ‘plane’ before I could say ‘mummy’.”

Duhalde convinced her parents to let her leave her

Margo Duhalde, Chile’s first female fighter pilot

country home in Rio Bueno aged just 16 and go to Santiago, where she lied about her age and enrolled in a flying school.

In 1940, she answered the call of de Gaulle to join the French forces as a volunteer.

Aged 20, she was recruited as a pilot by the Free France consulate in Santiago.

She headed to Buenos Aires and from there by ship to brave the war in Europe.

Apart from the English weather, she faced the barriers of language and sexism at a time when women pilots were rare.

“The men always said that women were never going to be able to fly airplanes,” she said.

“But they had to swallow their pride, because really we flew just as well as they did.”

Despite it all, she ended up being incorporated into Britain’s Royal Air Force as it fended off the Nazi threat.

At first Duhalde was made to look after the sick and aid the mechanics. But eventually she was recruited into the Air Transport Auxiliary to help with the war effort.

Her mission: flying Spitfires and other aircraft from one British airfield to another to prevent them from being destroyed on the ground by the enemy.

France’s Armed Forces Historical Review notes that Duhalde “piloted more than 1,500 British or US aircraft of every type: fighters, bombers, transports and training aircraft.”

During her wartime service, she had about 10 plane accidents that nearly killed her.

“Nowadays it makes me afraid” to think of it, she said. “When I’m trying to sleep, I’ll think of one of the accidents I had and get scared.”

She was not the only woman pilot to fly during the war, but in her home country she is a legend.

Her exploits won her the French Legion D’Honneur and decorations in Britain and Chile.

On returning home, she became the first woman air traffic controller in Chile and worked as an airline pilot.

She last piloted a plane in 2007, at the age of 86.

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to fly. According to my mother, I started saying ‘plane’ before I could say ‘mummy.’”